English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2011-08-22 (page 2 of 5)

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2:01 PM

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Q: Endangered and lost words

I just read this new story, apparently many words have gone extinct. Wouldn't it be great we can contribute to this list? It need not be a really extinct word. If one thinks that it is going out of vocabulary in one's locality, it is worth mentioning here. PS : I believe it is a relevant discuss...

^ not constructive

I speak Eastern Lombard, but that doesn't mean I can understand all the people who speak it; there are people from the mountains that I cannot understand, even if they live in the same province.

Good morning!

Morning!

@kiamlaluno It is the same here!

@Cerberus Are you sure you don't live in Lombardy? :-)

@kiamlaluno Heh. Well, it is very well possible that dialectical variation is greater in Italy.

And I'm not very good an understanding odd dialects.

2:15 PM

@Cerberus Hey! Eastern Lombard is not a dialect; it's a language! :-)

Ehh.... right!

I was used to call dialect what I speak (apart Italian), but Wikipedia talks of Brixian language, not dialect.

That's why I was referring to the differences between you and your mountainous neighbours—not between you and Ligurians.

That is a difference language at all. :-)

What definition of dialect v. language do they use? I think there is no really clear boundary...

2:17 PM

I would not understand besughi if it were not for a TV program.

@kiamlaluno Oh... between you and Napolitani, then!

@Cerberus Now you went to a different country at all. ;-)

Haha, I see you vote Lega Nord and practise wishful thinking.

Or don't they want to split the country any more?

@Cerberus Well, they are the promoters of a federal fiscal system.

Just that?

I'm sure those Milanese banks have taken their share of government expenditures over the past few years, so are they still "paying for the south"?

2:35 PM

@Cerberus I am not in contact with any person working in a bank. My bank is just a virtual office on Internet. :-)

I hardly ever go to the bank either.

Just when I have lost my bank card or something.

@Cerberus By the way, I found a bank card. Is it yours?

Yes!

Why don't you pull some nice, crispy notes from the wall and mail them to me?

@Cerberus Whoops… the dog chewed it. Not that I have a dog, but that is what happened.

I didn't chew nothing!

2:39 PM

@Cerberus I know it was not you; otherwise it would have been chewed thrice.

True!

Notes from a mall? Do you mean murals? Now that is getting a little more difficult.

Ehh... I meant bank notes from an ATM.

Last time I tried getting notes from a wall, somebody gave me a note: "Pay €200 for ruining a public property."

Then you struck the wrong note.

2:42 PM

I guess that was his way of getting bank notes from a wall.

@Cerberus I did, but I am sure he didn't!

The notes are supposed to pass in the other direction.

@Cerberus Yeah, yeah, that is what I said, but he started laughing.

Punch a hole through the wall and take your money back?

@Cerberus I guess that would be a fee more.

But when you're angry, you're angry!

2:47 PM

@Cerberus Yeah, but when you pay a fee, you pay a fee. Now, I know that said from an Italian that could seem a joke.

user image

@kiamlaluno laughing

^ I have seen this. The whole restroom is decorated.

@aediaλ Haha, nice.

It's a pub near where I live.

2:52 PM

(I knew it.)

Yeah some of those restroom texts can be quite funny.

I saw bathroom graffiti once in a stall at the Library of Congress. It was funny because it was a quote but it had a whole citation after.

user image

crickets

Okay, so it's not as funny out of context.

3:08 PM

tumbleweed ------->

the funny thing is imagining a unicorn photographing toilet stall graffiti

<------------- tumbleweed

@z7sgѪ The tumbleweed opening tag starts again here? Everything we say from this point on will continue to be ignored, forgotten, misunderstood, and ultimately pointless?

Oh no. I'm shouting into a vacuum. What if there is no one else here? What if I'm in Plato's Cave? What if I'm not even really here?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@aediaλ Isn't being ignored, forgotten, misunderstood and ultimately pointless the entire point of this room?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Shush! If you acknowledge that, we might cease to exist!

It's too early for these existential questions. And my coffee levels are dangerously low.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@aediaλ Wait, you guys exist too? I thought only I existed.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 You might just be in my head.

3:22 PM

@MrShinyandNew安宇 @aedia nothing said here has any permanence or enduring meaning while the tag is in effect... that's not a bad thing, though! just grab yourself a nice cup of coffee and enjoy the ride

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@z7sgѪ But in order to grab a cup of coffee I have to leave here, and "here" ceases to be unless I'm here. And I wouldn't be here, I'd be there, getting coffee. Only "here" is relative to where, that is, where I am, and I am not here. Or would not be.

@z7sgѪ settles down with a fresh mug of steaming coffee Ahhh. Better already.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Look, the coffee is here, and it doesn't seem to care that it's drunk, so I'm not going to care either.

pretends to be back at the beach and also that this work is going to organize itself, since it might not exist anyway and ultimately doesn't matter

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@aediaλ I'm here, but the coffee is there. Or is it the other way around?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Dude.. I think someone may have spiked your latte with LSD.

Wow, deep stuff, dude.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:34 PM

@z7sgѪ that would explain the code I'm looking at.

The important is the code is not talking to you.

I wish the code would talk to me when I am debugging it, though.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@kiamlaluno teehee it DOES talk to me

I actually made it so that when our application is finished deploying/starting, it speaks "Deployment is complete"

That way I know to stop goofing off and start testing the changes.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I tried that, but I get scared all times the Mac speaks to me.

I even tried changing the voice, but the scary got worse.

I liked the "Cellos" voice, though.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@kiamlaluno I used some web-based text-to-speech thing. forget which one.

Thinking of that, I will set the Mac to announce when an application needs my attention.

3:45 PM

I have my code display a non-interrupting text on screen when I want to test parts of it.

But sound can be better if you're not looking.

My code cooks cookies all times it breaks.

Yay!

@Cerberus It would be "yay!" if they were good to eat, at least. :-)

OK, it's now time to take the decision about buying a new MacMini.

Aw.

I have to go too.

Good luck on your decision process!

@Cerberus Thank you. May I send the account to pay to you? That would help in my decision.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

3:49 PM

@Cerberus No you don't!

I think I saw a ghost passing by.

@kiamlaluno Sure no prob! I love anything Apple!

@RegDwightѬſ道 Hey!!

Welcome back, Romano!

How was it?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Ave Cerber.

It was similar to @RegDwight.

Did you see the good stuff?

*Cerbere

RegDwight Ѭſ道

3:50 PM

@Cerberus I did.

@Cerberus *I know.

Did you like the city in general?

*OK good.

You should expect he would have learned Latin, at least.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus Dusty, dirty, filthy, hot.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwightѬſ道 Is that an endorsement?

@RegDwightѬſ道 Hmm yeah, I suppose August is actually the worst month to go there, hehe.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Haha, dirty mind...

RegDwight Ѭſ道

3:51 PM

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Not really, no. I will follow up with details as time permits. Right now I got pasta to cook and a war to snipe.

Pasta!

Sniping!

Good things.

I've only ever been to Rome in October and January.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

In a nutshell, the bad stuff was nowhere as bad, and the good stuff was nowhere as good as expected.

Hmm...

RegDwight Ѭſ道

So it didn't win my heart.

Not even the musea? They shouldn't have been too hot.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

3:53 PM

Things I was skeptical about turned out awesome, and things I was really looking forward to turned out meh.

Very consistently.

Hmm what were those, respectively?

The good stuff was Caius Julius Caesar being still around; the bad stuff was Caius Julius Caesar being still around.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus BRB spending stamina. We'll have time later on today I hope?

Wife's hungry, too.

The locals all go on holiday in August don't they?

Sure, later!

@z7sgѪ So I have heard.

3:55 PM

Or is that a myth?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@z7sgѪ August 15th is the biggest holiday.

They go to the country, where it is less smoggy.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Half the city was closed down.

And it was still effing overrun and crowdy.

Fontane di Trevi was a frigging nightmare.

It was no longer funny. It was no longer sad. It was just an awful exaggeration of awful.

My hotel was 100 meters close to fontana di Trevi; I had no problem in seeing that. :-)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@kiamlaluno We were right at the Termini.

What I, no: we, liked most, was Trastevere.

3:57 PM

@RegDwightѬſ道 The train station?

How about the Villa Borguese? The other musea?

Yeah Trastevere isn't nearly as crowded.

And the Pantheon? The churches?

Oh… Trastevere, Triburtina, l'Anulare.

I have been at the Pantheon.

I think we had three days to visit the town.

Hmm that's a quickie.

@RegDwightѬſ道 when i went fontane di trevi was gorgeous, but completely overrun. you could only appreciate the gorgeousness abstracting away the people

It's a shame that all the pictures I got are now lost.

4:00 PM

@JSB: Time of year?

@Cerberus may

Hmm I suppose there were many tourists by then already.

the vatican was a mix. St. Peter's was a letdown, but the Sistine was excellent

But very crowded, no?

yes. that's why st. peter's was too crowded

RegDwight Ѭſ道

4:02 PM

I've seen a metric ton of phantastic churches. St. Peter's wasn't really one of them.

Why do all those people always crowd around the nice things I want to see? sigh

@RegDwightѬſ道 i mostly concur. did you see the sistine chapel, though? because that one lived up to the hype

Did you go to San Clemente?

@RegDwight! Hai! I hope you enjoyed your holiday despite the crowds?

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4:06 PM

OK, I am in mission for… for… well, for myself. When I return, I will tell you how the upgrade went.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs We didn't. I would have gone there if I were allowed to walk freely and look at the stuff at my own terms. But what you get offered instead is being embedded into a two-feet wide constant stream of tourists flowing through it incessantly.

Good luck!

@Cerberus They're just trying to ruin the experience by jostling you.

@z7sgѪ Thank you!

@RegDwightѬſ道 i was able to enjoy the sistine chapel despite that. but, yeah, that's basically how it goes

4:07 PM

@Cerberus Thank you. What you said before is still valid, isn't it? I count on that.

@kiamlaluno Sure! I looove Apple!

@Cerberus OK, I can think of giving you my old Mac.

Ehh no thanks.

The Apple logo makes me wild.

Makes me want to crush it.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The thing about St. Peter is, its beauty is entirely calculated. Almost clinical. It's pleasing on the eye for the sole sake of being pleasing on the eye. That's alreay kinda superficial even when taken on its own, but if you add into the equation where it's supposed to be standing, and what it's supposed to represent, it's even worse.

Hmm... a complicated argument.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

4:11 PM

When I was in Santa Maria in Trastevere, it wasn't beautiful for the sake of beauty. It... it just was. It just stood there and claimed nothing, not even attention. And yet when I stood there it was so overwhelming I wanted to cry.

Aww.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus Not really, no.

@RegDwightѬſ道 that is an astute observation.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Some things touch your heart, others touch your mind.

I don't remember much about S. Maria in T., but I think it was a bit sober, wasn't it? (Not in a bad way, of course.)

I know that kind of feeling.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

4:14 PM

@Cerberus It's an unparalleled mix of, um, everything.

OK.

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one of my favorite churches in the world is a little wooden church of no significance in Suceava. it has that feeling.

Nice.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

user image

Yeah it's pretty.

Catholic art can be a bit overwhelming at times.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

4:17 PM

More to the point, this is not your stoopid catholicism. It's orthodoxy. All the way down to byzantine icons.

More = better, the Popes seemed to think.

@RegDwightѬſ道 i should star this

Alain Pannetier

@Cerberus, the one you've shown is Santa Maria Maggiore (the ex Roman temple), it's not in Trastevere.

Byzantine art is good.

@AlainPannetier Oh, really!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Oh and dammit did we get some fine ice cream

4:18 PM

It looked different but I had forgotten what it looked like...

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@AlainPannetier Um, I think the image is fine.

@RegDwightѬſ道 hell yes. italian gelato = win

RegDwight Ѭſ道

BTW, all those columns were different.

The whole church was a patchwork.

I didn't see the columns on the other pictures.

i haven't found anything that approaches it here, not even in the places claiming to sell italian gelato

4:22 PM

@AlainPannetier Are you sure?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs We have like 30% Italian population here, and some real fine gelati, but even that is complete crap when compared to what we got in Esquilino, est. 1880.

@Cerberus I'm with you on this one.

It's been too long since I have visited either church, but those pictures of the S. Maria Maggiore look different. The ceiling has square cassettes, for one thing.

@RegDwightѬſ道 OK.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Pasta time! Laterz.

Alain Pannetier

@Cerberus, No you were right. I got confused by the columns.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Bai!

@AlainPannetier Those Catholics confuse me all the time!

Alain Pannetier

4:27 PM

user image

Yeah.

Alain Pannetier

Here, the columns are regular.

Also pretty.

@AlainPannetier this strikes me as excessively institutional

Alain Pannetier

Old Roman temple - Baroque revamping.

4:28 PM

In any case it is a million times prettier than what people build today.

@Cerberus modern church architecture is an abomination, with a handful of exception for the deliberate anachronisms

Yeah. And don't get me started on profane modern architecture...

Alain Pannetier

@JSBᾶngs You're right, not exactly as intimate as the one shown by @RegDwight.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Cerberus That was another thing that was rather striking. The old stuff in Rome is just as awesome as the new stuff is awful.

This is the critically acclaimed library of the University of Utrecht, which has apparently won international prizes:

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RegDwight Ѭſ道

4:31 PM

I don't think we've seen anything built in the last 100 years that wasn't kinda crappy.

And anything built in the last 20 years was pure distilled crap.

@RegDwightѬſ道 I agree!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Anyhow! Pasta! Laterz!

Alain Pannetier

@RegDwightѬſ道 What's striking also is that people live in a museum. Some of the historical monuments are actually inhabited all year long.

@RegDwightѬſ道 i'm not sure about that. the nadir of architecture, at least here in the states, was the 60s-80s

What did you think of the mausoleum of Victor Emanuel II?

4:32 PM

there is some stuff from the last 20 yrs which is tolerable

@AlainPannetier That is great, yes. But is that so striking? People live in monuments everywhere?

@JSBᾶngs I suppose I agree, 1960–1990 was the absolute worst. But it still sucks a great deal.

See the picture above.

And those things you think are rain tracks are actually painted on the glass.

@Cerberus awful.

of course, there are few things as bad as the seattle public library

I find many of the revered, historical buildings hideous, especially the garish interiors. All that gold.. who are they trying to impress?

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and the interior is worse. the architect managed to design a library that's completely unusable for actually finding and reading books

@JSBᾶngs Haha no way, you just photoshopped that in!

4:38 PM

@Cerberus no, i've been there. several times. it's awful.

@JSBᾶngs Ack that sucks. They have done the same with the Amsterdam public library, I hear.

@JSBᾶngs You sure it wasn't a UFO that decided to perch on the square?

Here you see the Van Gogh-Museum, with the Concertgebouw in the background. The rest of the square is all stately late-19th-century buildings.

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what i don't get is that architects love this building, despite (or because) of the fact that it's neither pretty nor functional

anyway. off to lunch

@JSBᾶngs Architects really suck. I know this from experience.

@Cerberus criminal.

now. lunch.

@JSBᾶngs Thanks!

Bye!

Oh, and notice the no windows in the museum.

@z7sgѪ I agree that there are several movements in pre-1900 decoration that go too far, are garish. That's why Bauhaus decided to go against tradition. But I think they went too far, with their taboo on decoration. Decoration should be modest and in proportion.

4:50 PM

The least contentious, most successful example of modern architecture I can think of is the Sydney Opera House. I hope one day I will be able to see it for real.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

They just built a new Centre Pompidou in Metz. Too bad we had no time on our last visit.

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The entire roof is like that.

@Cerberus The Newseum must have bought them all at a reduced rate.

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As well as a reaction against the excessive decoration, new materials and building methods gave architects perhaps too much freedom too quickly, and they went nuts. I don't know what's going wrong now though.... it's just so much a matter of taste some people will always like or dislike something.

The natural lighting in many of the areas really is very nice, and there is a terrace with a great view, but from the outside it's rather horrendously boxy.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@aediaλ Newseum? Seriously? What's next, Nauseam?

4:54 PM

@z7sgѪ I looks nice from a distance. I have never been there, but I'm a bit afraid of what the details will look like from up close.

@aediaλ Haha! The name is ugly as the exterior.

@aediaλ Some people like boxy, some people like curvy... can't please all the people!

I like classicism!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I was very impressed with the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Jewish Museum Berlin

The Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin), in Berlin, Germany, covers two millennia of German Jewish history. It consists of two buildings. One is the old Kollegienhaus, a former courthouse, built in the 18th century. The other, a new addition specifically built for the museum, designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind. This was one of the first buildings in Berlin designed after German reunification. The museum opened to the public in 2001. Princeton professor W. Michael Blumenthal, who was born near Berlin and was later President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of the Tre...

user image

Oh, God.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

It's great.

4:56 PM

evening

RegDwight Ѭſ道

You gotta get inside.

I'm out, groceries.

Alain Pannetier

Hi @Jez

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Here they did manage to make form follow function, despite what the form suggests...

@Cerberus I like the outside too, except that it's next to a classical style building:

A horrible clash of styles.

Bogdan Lataianu

4:58 PM

the outside looks like a Borg ship

@z7sgѪ that's a pretty terrible clash

RegDwight Ѭſ道

In other news @JSBangs, we had no Italian TV in our hotel, but we did have a Romanian channel, which we ended up watching almost exclusively.

@RegDwightѬſ道 i'm sure that was entertaining. did you see anything in particular?

@RegDwightѬſ道 btw @JSBangs doesn't ping me (but @JSB does)

@RegDwightѬſ道 Oh, wow. That looks amazing to visit.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@JSBᾶngs Gah, you and your nasality.

@aediaλ It absolutely is. It's highly interactive, too. Not just looking at stuff passively.

@JSBᾶngs Some news shows, some old movies, lots and lots of folklore singing and dancing, and no commercials.

'twas TVR, btw.

Bogdan Lataianu

5:04 PM

that's romanian national television, but maybe it was TVR international

That building looks like an earthquake has squashed up the land beneath it

RegDwight Ѭſ道

They also had an awesome grammer program late at night, where a girl and a boy would just sit and discuss verb complements. Sorry, I mean verbul complementul.

grammer :-)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

perpose ))

@RegDwightѬſ道 somehow, i've never watched this program

Bogdan Lataianu

5:07 PM

yeah that's TVR international

I used to have short passwords

nowadays most passwords require 6 characters, special characters, numbers, capitals...annoying

and captchas

5:22 PM

I don't comprehend this show.

If they are given 60 questions in a polygraph exam beforehand, and ~20 of them are asked on the show, it's not really much of a surprise to them is it?

Especially the really intimate ones, they're gonna know what they're gonna be asked

@RegDwightѬſ道 I went to our FDR memorial recently and I have to say it was nice. I hate monuments sometimes, but this was a little history park unto itself, with plenty of space for reflection.

I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing was just actors and actresses

I can't find a better video than this long one. It's this memorial which I guess is more than Roosevelt himself wanted, but it's not bad; it isn't a heroic tribute, but almost more of a monument to those years in history than to the man.

@aediaλ why would i need to reflect on FDR?

I didn't take many pictures myself when I was there because two bus-herds of screaming high-school tour kids had just arrived and were busy trying to drown themselves in the waterfalls and make a mockery of the statues of starving people from the Great Depression.

@JSBᾶngs Some of the quotes they chose are nice. About providing for the least fortunate or not giving up our rights. You could reflect on that.

5:30 PM

@Jez you're thinking too hard. the key to enjoying tv is to think less

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Jez That show could actually turn out somewhat watchable at this pace.

But it just drags on forever, and is entirely pointless even if not staged, which it quite obviously is.

why do they have a buildup to their answer? their immediate reaction tells you what it's gonna be

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Because that's what TV producers think is called "suspense".

That's why they'll never just tell you who the next Idol is. Instead, they will blather on for all eternity until you've forgotten you exist.

gotta love the whooping in the audience too

like they're in on something juicy and not staged

@Jez most of the audience in shows like this is paid actors

RegDwight Ѭſ道

5:35 PM

Where I live the show ran for like five episodes on a channel noöne ever heard of.

i learned this from an actor friend of mine who went to LA to become rich+famous

@JSBngs doesn't surprise me

do they still call this kind of thing 'reality TV'?

@Jez Oh, like your audiences don't whoop. Sure they do. Just with a voiceless labio-velar approximant.

hwhoop

Hwill Hwheaton!

5:39 PM

lol, i came up with that before Family Guy damnit

I was saying it, then they copied me

not hWhoopie Goldberg though

@JSBᾶngs I have heard this too, about all "reality" shows.

@Cerberus yep. it even applies to talk shows and all but the most popular late-night shows

you can generally get tickets for free, but the remainder of the seats are filled with actors who get paid $50 or something

Haha, so incredibly inane.

The first Big Brother was already a farce: it was part of the concept from the beginning, in 1999.

@JSBngs Jerry Springer? or were the audience just that dumb?

@Jez So, I'm curious... If you look at the list under "homophonous pairs" here, are most of these distinct for you?

5:47 PM

@Jez probably a little of both. the actors are coached, of course. but the rest of the audience might be coached too.

If that wasn't all staged, I am an artichoke! (The people on the stage, I mean.)

the really popular shows do actually manage to fill all of their seats every time, though.

@aedia No, but then I don't pronounce the voiceless labio-velar approximant, except sometimes for 'whet' for some reason.

@Jez For me all the pairs are homophonous too. I can convince myself I hear a difference if I try too hard, but I know it's not there.

It's fun to test such things with friends.

5:57 PM

But I do pronounce the voiceless 'h' in 'herb'

Because there's an h in it

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